EXAMINE THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF COACHING MENTORING PROGRAMS ON TEACHER BURNOUT

The World Health Organization has included “Burnout” in the International Classification of Diseases as an occupational phenomenon (World Health Organization, 2019). This phenomenon in teaching profession has created devastating attrition that urgently needs attention. The purpose of this study is to provide insight on how to address the negative issue of teacher attrition through examining how teacher leaders may affect teacher burnout during the coaching mentoring experience. An online questionnaire was employed to collect data from 82 teachers in a coastal Georgia school district; including teachers who had participated in a coaching mentoring program (n=51), teachers who hadn’t participated in a coaching mentoring program (n=31). Survey items were adopted from existing studies (Maslach & Jackson, 1996; Mayben, 2007) to examine teachers’ levels of burnout, perceptions about burnout factors and how these may be related with teachers’ participation in the coaching mentoring program. This study revealed that teachers involved in the coaching mentoring program suffered less from the stressor of home/personal life. It also revealed that novice teachers in the program suffered less from work overload and more from a particular class. Results indicated that teacher leaders are valuable resources that school districts can utilize to make positive changes to promote teacher well-being

A Collective Case Study of Novice Elementary Teachers\u27 Perceptions of Preparedness to Teach Early Literacy Skills to Beginning Readers

The purpose of this collective case study was to explore novice teachers’ perceptions of their preparedness to teach early literacy skills to beginning readers in rural northwest North Carolina. Novice teachers’ perceptions of how adequately prepared they felt to teach early literacy skills to beginning readers in prekindergarten through third grade was examined using Badura’s theory of self-efficacy. The central question was “What are the perceptions of participants regarding their preparedness to teach early literacy skills to beginning readers?” The three sub-questions were as follows: how do participants describe their preparedness as it relates to content knowledge; how do participants describe their preparedness as it relates to addressing students’ challenges in acquiring literacy skills; and what experiences or opportunities do participants believe would help prepare beginning teachers to teach early literacy skills to beginning readers? The participants were 10 novice elementary school teachers responsible for teaching early literacy skills in prekindergarten through third grade. Data was collected via individual interviews, focus group interviews, and reflective journaling. Data was analyzed using coding to identify themes and patterns. The study produced four themes and nine subthemes. The themes were feelings of preparedness, effective literacy instruction, orthography, and differentiated instruction. The results indicated novice teachers felt unprepared to meet the literacy needs of beginning readers. However, teachers felt more prepared after gaining experience in the classroom, collaborating with veteran teachers, and when using scripted programs. Future research needs to include a larger sample size representative of more teacher preparation programs to better understanding teachers’ current perceptions of preparedness to teach early literacy skills to beginning readers

Through Her Own Eyes: Environmental Rhetoric in Women\u27s Autobiographical Frontier Writing

Through Her Own Eyes: Environmental Rhetoric in Women’s Autobiographical Frontier Writing identifies frontier women, those who traveled overland to the West and those who homesteaded, as historical ecofeminists. The purpose of this study is to analyze frontier women’s environmental rhetoric in their journals and letters, which encouraged readers to become closer to nature and get to know it while encountering new land in the West. Promoting a close relationship with nature, frontier women’s writing also implied conserving and protecting nature for future generations, which demonstrates how they can be retroactively labeled ecofeminists. Frontier women’s environmental rhetoric reveals their alignment with Carolyn Merchant’s theory for harmony between humankind and nature: partnership ethics. Although many historians have mentioned frontier women’s emphasis on nature in their narratives, few have explored frontier women’s nature writing at length. Glenda Riley has completed a book-length study of early American women environmentalists, but she mentions only women whose environmental work led to documented activism or membership in conservation organizations. Annette Kolodny’s work focused on frontier women’s fantasies about the west, rather than their environmental rhetoric as a way of persuading readers, whereas my work uses frontier women’s daily writing to demonstrate an evolving environmental ethic that helps to categorize them as historical ecofeminists. An archival project, this study relies upon the archived overland journals of Sarah Sutton and Nancy Sherwin, both housed at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library as well as the letters of female homesteader Elinore Pruitt Stewart, archived at the Sweetwater County Museum. A visit to the archives at the Sweetwater County Museum yielded the treasure of Elinore Pruitt Stewart’s numerous unpublished letters. Frontier women’s philosophical alignment with ecofeminism made it possible for ecological philosophies to begin taking root in the American West. As historical ecofeminists, frontier women’s writing laid the foundation for the modern-day ecological conscience that makes individuals work to conserve nature for future generations

Sub-arcsec Observations of NGC 7538 IRS 1: Continuum Distribution and Dynamics of Molecular Gas

We report new results based on the analysis of the SMA and CARMA observations of NGC 7538\,IRS\,1 at 1.3 and 3.4 mm with sub-arcsec resolutions. With angular resolutions $\sim$ 0\farcs7, the SMA and CARMA observations show that the continuum emission at 1.3 and 3.4 mm from the hyper-compact \ion{H}{2} region IRS\,1 is dominated by a compact source with a tail-like extended structure to the southwest of IRS\,1. With a CARMA B-array image at 1.3 mm convolved to 0\farcs1, we resolve the hyper-compact \ion{H}{2} region into two components: an unresolved hyper-compact core, and a north-south extension with linear sizes of $<270$ AU and $\sim$2000 AU, respectively. The fine structure observed with CARMA is in good agreement with the previous VLA results at centimeter wavelengths, suggesting that the hyper-compact \ion{H}{2} region at the center of IRS\,1 is associated with an ionized bipolar outflow. We image the molecular lines OCS(19-18) and CH$_3$CN(12-11) as well as $^{13}$CO(2-1) surrounding IRS\,1, showing a velocity gradient along the southwest-northeast direction. The spectral line profiles in $^{13}$CO(2-1), CO(2-1), and HCN(1-0) observed toward IRS\,1 show broad redshifted absorption, providing evidence for gas infall with rates in the range of $3-10\times10^{-3}$ M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ inferred from our observations.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figure

The ACMES Triton Satellite: A Versatile Platform for the Next Generation of Advanced High Power CubeSats

The Active Cooling for Multispectral Earth Sensors mission is an upcoming technology flight demonstration funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate (ESTO STMD) through the In-space Validation of Earth Science Technologies (InVEST) program. ACMES is currently being developed by teams from the Center for Space Engineering (CSE) at Utah State University (USU), Orion Space Solutions (OSS), and the Hawaii Spaceflight Institute (HSFL). ACMES will feature a variety of next-generation Earth Science remote sensing and in situ ionospheric payloads, including the second-generation Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI 2.0) instrument, a LWIR push-broom interferometer that produces 25 spectral bands between ~8-12 μm with a ground sampling distance better than 45 meters. HyTI 2.0 is capable of generating LandSat quality ground mapping datasets from a CubeSat platform. In addition, ACMES will feature two student-developed payloads: The Filter Incidence Narrow-band Infrared Spectrometer (FINIS), a daytime Methane detector, and the Planar Langmuir Impedance Diagnostic (PLAID) instrument, a planar style RF impedance probe. ACMES will June to October 2025 to a ~550 km SSO orbit and serve a one-year technology demonstration mission by an extended mission to collect valuable scientific grade data for the Earth science community. ACMES is supported by the OSS Triton line of CubeSat buses. The Triton line of satellite buses features several enabling technologies, including onboard cold gas propulsion for station keeping and injunction avoidance, high data rate, +186 Gb/day (max), S & X-band DVBS2.0 telemetry links, peak solar power generation of over ~230 W, and smart power control, and distribution to ~400 Wh dedicated Lithium-Ion battery storage. In addition, Triton buses include the Active Thermal Architecture (ATA) technology. The ATA is a dedicated and integrated Mechanically Pumped Fluid loop active thermal control system that serves as an enabling technology for high-powered payloads such as the HyTI 2.0 instrument. The Triton platform is a scalable (6U to 16U) satellite architecture that is custom-tailored for supporting advanced, high-powered payloads and challenging small satellite missions. We will discuss the design, development, and testing of the Triton CubeSat platform, the ACMES mission, and how this technology can enable the next generation of small satellites in Earth Science, Heliophysics, and planetary science

Addressing Barriers to Universal Screening for Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Risk in Elementary Schools

Early identification of students in need of additional support in the classroom is an important structure for school districts to have in place. Universal screening for social-emotional and behavioral (SEB) risk is one method that schools can use to identify students in need of SEB support and to begin early intervention programing. Unfortunately, recommendations about universal screening and resources for universal screening for SEB risk are limited. As a result, barriers to screening are increased and interventions are delayed – sometimes indefinitely -- for those who need them most. This paper discusses the barriers and challenges experienced by elementary schools (grades K-5) in one school district in the South across a three-year consultative study. This district was supported by the researchers in identifying an appropriate SEB screener, in disseminating the screener, and in ensuring accuracy in its completion. Across the three years, data were evaluated from previous years, and recommendations to improve the district’s screening initiative were made by the lead consultant and school psychology graduate students. Over time, positive changes were noted in screening practices, but it is evident that more work needs to be done. Specific solutions and future implications for early childhood are discussed

Large-scale discovery of enhancers from human heart tissue.

Development and function of the human heart depend on the dynamic control of tissue-specific gene expression by distant-acting transcriptional enhancers. To generate an accurate genome-wide map of human heart enhancers, we used an epigenomic enhancer discovery approach and identified ∼6,200 candidate enhancer sequences directly from fetal and adult human heart tissue. Consistent with their predicted function, these elements were markedly enriched near genes implicated in heart development, function and disease. To further validate their in vivo enhancer activity, we tested 65 of these human sequences in a transgenic mouse enhancer assay and observed that 43 (66%) drove reproducible reporter gene expression in the heart. These results support the discovery of a genome-wide set of noncoding sequences highly enriched in human heart enhancers that is likely to facilitate downstream studies of the role of enhancers in development and pathological conditions of the heart

Gas Excitation in ULIRGS: Maps of Diagnostic Emission-Line Ratios in Space and Velocity

Emission-line spectra extracted at multiple locations across 39 ultraluminous infrared galaxies have been compiled into a spectrophotometric atlas. Line profiles of H alpha, [N II], [S II], [O I], H beta, and [O III] are resolved and fit jointly with common velocity components. Diagnostic ratios of these line fluxes are presented in a series of plots, showing how the Doppler shift, line width, gas excitation, and surface brightness change with velocity at fixed position and also with distance from the nucleus. One general characteristic of these spectra is the presence of shocked gas extending many kiloparsecs from the nucleus. In some systems, the shocked gas appears as part of a galactic gas disk based on its rotation curve. These gas disks appear primarily during the early stages of the merger. The general characteristics of the integrated spectra are also presented.Comment: Submitted to ApJS. The first 10 pages are writeup. Also included are 3 appendices (91 pages) that include a large sample of figures and tables intended for the online only version of the publication. 101 pages total, 5 figures, 2 figure sets (39 subfigures each), 5 tables. This is a companion paper to "The Emission-Line Spectra of Major Mergers: Evidence for Shocked Outflows" by Soto et al. 201